Credit Card Payment Gateway - Protect your Identity

In the underworld of identity theft, criminals tend to fall into three categories,

Collectors

Convertors

Passers

Collectors are the foot soldiers of identity theft: They lift letters from mailboxes, steal wallets from purses and generally snoop out personal data any way they can. This information is then sold or traded for drugs to "converters."

Converters are the brains of the operation; they know how to play the credit system as well as any financial advisor. When a collector offers information for trade, a converter will often use the Internet to obtain the credit score and credit report associated with an identity, and then base what they pay the collector on how much credit the victim's data can probably fetch. The converters then turn the credit data into cash using a variety of expert methods. One way is to order credit cards online, or fill out pre-approved applications for credit cards and have them delivered to drop boxes. The credit cards are then used to order hard goods, like computers or other electronics, which can be fenced for cash.

Passers
Often, getting the most out of a stolen identity will involve passing a bad check at a bank or retail store. Converters, who like to hide behind computers, don't risk face-to-face confrontations. They leave that job to passers. Some are even bold enough to walk into a financial institution with a fraudulent check - crafted by the converter - and attempt to cash it using a fake ID. Proceeds are usually split with the converter.

	10 Ways to protect your identity
	1. Burn or shred, with a cross shredder, any mail or financial papers with your personal information on it. Never recycle them. 2. When online, ensure that your browser is showing an SSL padlock when entering sensitive username and password information 3. Ask your credit card firm to cease delivery of "convenience checks." They, too, are ticking time bombs. 4. You're entitled to one free credit report each year. Get it as soon as possible and review it carefully. 5. Order a credit report a month or more before you make a big purchase or apply for credit, to be sure there are no surprises in your history. 6. Hassle companies that ask for personal information, such as your phone number at a checkout line. The harder we make it on companies, the less they will be inclined to continue the practice. 7. It's impossible to tell what's real and what's fake online. Just delete any e-mail that asks for personal information. 8. Just hang up on telemarketers, particularly ones who seem to be fishing for personal information, like your birthday. 9. Limit the number of credit cards you hold, and religiously inspect your financial statements each month. Consumer rights quickly fade over time; the sooner you discover an identity theft incident, the better. 10. Most of the time, you can't prevent an ID theft incident from occuring, because two-thirds of the time, some company that leaked the data is to blame. So be prepared, and be organized. Save paper bank records for a year, at least. You'll need them to prove your account balance in the event of a ID theft incident.
	Password Do's and Dont's
	DO: Use combinations of upper- and lowercase characters, as well as symbols and numbers. Most hackers focus on commonly used words in dictionary databases. Pick long words. The more characters, the harder it is to hack. Combine two unusual, long words around a special character, e.g. labyrinthine;gesticulate. Use the first letter of each word from a favorite saying, song lyric or poem. So "Somewhere over the Rainbow" becomes SOTR or sOtR. Use foreign language words. Combining a foreign language word and an English word is even more effective. DON'T: Use a word that appears in a common dictionary. Use a common word that simply ends with a special character or a number (Super1 or Flash$). Hackers are aware of this trick. Use the same password multiple times. Your debit and credit cards should not have the same PIN numbers, for example. Use a series, either forwards or backwards (i.e., ABCDEF 654321). Use common keyboard sequences like QWERTY. Use an easily guessed word like your name or any variation of it. Use something that people might be able to guess from your wallet if it's stolen, like your child's name or your favorite sports team.